Artemis’ adventures began as soon as she was born, as might be expected in a babe of such divine parentage. So far as they are not common to her and her brother Apollo, they may be said to begin with the killing of Orion. Apollodorus gives the fullest extant version of his story:
They say that he was a child of Earth, and of enormous stature; Pherekydes, however, states that his parents were Poseidon and Euryale. Poseidon gave him power to walk across the sea. His first wife was Side (‘Pomegranate’), whom he (? whom Zeus) cast into the House of Hades, because she strove to rival the beauty of Hera. He then wooed Merope, daughter of Oinopion. But Oinopion made him drunk and when he was asleep put out his eyes and cast him down by the seashore. So he went to a forge (? text uncertain) and snatching up a boy, put him on his shoulders and bade him guide him eastwards. Arriving there he regained his sight from a ray of the sun, and hastened back after Oinopion. Poseidon however had provided him with an underground house wrought by Hephaistos. And Eos fell in love with Orion and carried him off and brought him to Delos; for Aphrodite caused Eos to be perpetually in love, because she had bedded with Ares. Now Orion, according to some, was killed because he challenged Artemis to throw the discus against him, while others say he tried to violate Opis, one of the maidens who had come from the Hyperboreans, and so was shot by Artemis.
The legends we have concerning Orion are for the most part rather obscure and late; most of them seem to cluster about either Boiotia or Chios. There is first the strange story of his birth. Hyrieus, the Boiotian hero after whom the town of Hyriai was supposed to be named, had no children. Consequently, when he was visited by three gods (generally stated to be Zeus, Poseidon, and Hermes), and in return for his hospitable reception of them was asked to name a wish, he begged for a son (compare the Old Testament Biblical story of Abraham.) The gods fulfilled his request in a curious fashion; taking the hide of an ox, they ejaculated upon it, and ordered it to be buried in the ground for ten (lunar) months; at the end of that time a child was born from the ground, and named Ourion in commemoration of the act of the gods (ourein, ‘to pass water;’ compare the metaphor of Shakespeare’s Falstaff, who similarly ‘pissed his tallow’). Later his name was altered to Orion.
Of his adventures one may be named, viz. his persistent pursuit of the Pleiades, the daughters of Atlas. This is one of the few stories in all of ancient Greek mythology which may have a plausibly quite early link with astronomy; for the constellation Orion, although it maintains a somewhat erratic connexion with the hero, is in the neighbourhood of the Pleiades. According to one version, he met them with their mother Pleione in Boiotia and straightway pursued Pleione with amorous intent. She and her daughters fled, and the flight was stopped, or immortalized, by pursuer and pursued alike being turned into constellations.
In another Boiotian tale Orion appears as the father of two daughters, the Koronides (Metioche and Menippe), who were minor local heroines or goddesses. In keeping with the sidereal affinities of their father, these were turned into comets.
Apart from these stories, Orion appears to have been a mighty hunter in Boiotian tradition, and on the whole a benevolent being, if rather too amorous. He was here and there worshipped. The name of his wife Side is noteworthy; it is the Boiotian word for a pomegranate; the town of Sidai (i.e., ‘City of Pomegranates’) was said to be named after her, and the story that she went down untimely to Hades may be connected with the fact that the pomegranate has, as see in the legend of Persephone (read the ‘Homeric’ Hymn to Demeter), underworld connexions.
The legend of Oinopion connects itself with Chios; it is very natural that the ‘Son of Wine-face’ should be lord of one of the most famous wine-growing districts in all the Greek world. Besides Apollodoros’—or rather Pherekydes’—account of what happened, already given, there are two others; one that Orion paid a friendly visit to Oinopion, set about clearing the island of wild beasts, and while so employed met Artemis, whom he tried to violate. The goddess thereupon caused a great scorpion to grow out of the gronnd, which stung Orion to death; both of them may still be seen in the heavens. Another tale is that Orion desired to marry Oinopion’s daughter Hairo, and so proceeded to work for her father, ridding the country of wild beasts, and also reived cattle from neighbouring regions and brought them as bride-price to Hairo’s father. But Oinopion delayed the marriage nntil at last Orion, in a fit of drunkeness, anticipated his marital rights, whereat the injured father blinded him. Several minor variants are known; very likely, if we had all that is now lost of Greek literature, we should not consider some of them insignificant.
It is by no means clear what relation the giant Orion originally bore to the constellation Orion. Homer knows of both the hunter and also of Orion the constellation, but never so much as hints that they are one and the same; but several later writers apparently found their stories on the relative position of that constellation, Scorpius, and the Pleiades. One reason for this state of affairs seems to be that no one great poet or group of poets ever put forth a version which imposed itself on the ancient world at large. So it may be that the popular local legends, often told no doubt by country folk, or by worshippers of the Koronides or other local godlings, remain to us more or less in their original shapes.